


nothing to want

by hotknife666 (hotdammneron)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: I'm Sorry, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Teeth, does overthinking count as an unhealthy coping mechanism?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22223008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdammneron/pseuds/hotknife666
Summary: He thinks about pushing, thinks about wanting until the taste of it is enough to make him sick. Leaves his phone on the coffee table he didn’t pick out. Goes to bed early.this is a story about teeth, and pulling things out of place, and wanting things so badly that it almost hurts.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 11
Kudos: 128





	nothing to want

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys, i took a six month sabbatical from rpf and then travis konecny broke a tooth in half and i guess here i am. this is unbetaed because the events that inspired it were literally four hours ago and i can't tell if i have any regrets. title from teeth in the grass by iron and wine which i listened to three dozen times while i wrote this. love u all

The edge of it is sharp, drags at the soft skin of his tongue when he runs it across. 

The period’s close enough to over that it doesn’t matter. The refs check on him when he’s down, and he’s fine, just gets back on his skates. It’s like that sometimes. Just gotta get back on your feet, try and make the last five minutes of the period count for shit. Shattenkirk serves his due time for it, the fucker, but it doesn’t matter in the end. Buzzer goes off, Travis doesn’t scream leaving the ice, doesn’t scream in the locker room, doesn’t scream in the parking garage, doesn’t scream alone in the car on the surface streets that’re supposed to be faster getting home. 

He just runs his tongue along the edge of the rest of his tooth, thinks about letting the point of it dig in, pierce the skin. He grips the steering wheel tight enough his nails press almost-sharp against his palms. 

Travis takes the elevator up to the third floor, twists the key in the lock the wrong way three times before he gets it right. That feels like it’s gotta mean something more than what it is. 

He undresses methodically, now, not ripping off shirts and buttons flying and falling asleep in his slacks because he’s too fucked to bother undoing his belt. He puts his suit jacket back on the padded hanger, undoes his tie, takes his time slipping the buttons of his shirt cuffs loose from the holes. He unties his shoes before he kicks them off, because there are habits that stick with you until you die - chewing hoodie strings, sleeping with socks on, pressing your tongue up into the hole in the back of your mouth where your wisdom teeth grew in - and there are things you can train out, like a fuckin’ adult. 

He unties his shoes before he kicks them off. Puts his laundry in the hamper. Changes into sweats, grabs one of those pre-made smoothies Kev was ranting about from the fridge. There are habits that stick with you until you die, there’s the immature shit, and there’s the weight of the fucking world settled all nice and cozy onto your shoulders, and it’s a balancing act; untie your shoes, line them up nice by the door. Jam the tip of your tongue into the soft ridges, the folds where they pulled out the bone. Try not to send eight texts in a row when you haven’t gotten anything back from the last eight. 

The first time Travis lost a tooth he was six. It’d been loose for so long and he’d been whining for so long Chase had offered to tie a string around it, other end on the doorknob, and slam the door, yank it out quick. It came out when he bit into an ice pop too quick, didn’t let it get soft first. Reckless.

He’d told everyone he lost it in a game. Let Lawson take the credit for knocking it loose. They figured it made it equal for Travis making a complete joke out of him whenever they were on the ice together, fair’s fair. 

_ saw ur gnarly tooth pics man, _

the text from Nolan reads. He doesn’t open it, just looks at the text preview when the notification pops up some time after ten. He doesn’t type out a response, doesn’t open it, presses against the edge of it. It’s all about pushing boundaries. 

He thinks about pushing a little harder, letting the fine little ridges of it press against the tissue of his tongue until it presses a little too deep, a pinprick of pain. Not enough blood to be anything more than an afterthought, but there nonetheless. He wants that little rush, somewhere in the cloudiest part of his mind, the part he doesn’t care to squint hard enough to see through all the fog. He wants the pain, the faint taste of that fraction of a drop of blood sticking around until he drinks enough to wash it away. He thinks about pushing his fingertip against the point, same effect, tougher skin. More force.

He thinks about pushing, thinks about wanting until the taste of it is enough to make him sick. Leaves his phone on the coffee table he didn’t pick out. Goes to bed early. 

“How’s the tooth?” Nolan asks when they finally meet for coffee, because he’s been fixated on it since he saw photos on his burner twitter. His latte has a little design of a cat, or something, swirled into the foam. It looks kinda like him, but TK’s worried he’d take that as a compliment. 

“Hurts a little, sometimes,” He says, focusing on stirring the half packet of sugar in the raw that’s settled into the bottom of the cup with his straw. It’s never gonna dissolve, but it gives him something to do with his hands. The sugar’s always going to be settled at the bottom of his cold brew, and that might feel like more than it is, too - the sugar isn’t changing the coffee, the coffee isn’t changing the sugar, they’re just. Existing, within one another. Whatever. 

“Are you gonna get it fixed?” Nolan asks, sticks the tip of his little finger into the ear of the cat-thing, sucks the foam off his finger like it’s nothing. Travis thinks about it and thinks about borders being pressed together and thinks about praying for the first time in twelve years. 

He makes a non-committal sound, pulls the straw high enough up in his coffee to keep from getting a mouth full of undissolved sugar. He’s been working on not biting the ends of his straws. Untying his laces, lining them up by the door.

“Doctors say I don’t have to, I dunno. Feels kinda weird,” he says, pinches the top of the straw between his forefinger and thumb, thinks about tugging on things that are already starting to come loose on their own. Speeding up the process. Changing the subject. “How’s the head?”

“She comes and goes,” Nolan says, like he’s talking about a horse, or the weather. Travis looks at the space between the fabric of his sleeve and the skin of his wrist, thinks about contact. 

Sunday’s an off day, so Travis smokes on the balcony while Sanny’s out with his girlfriend. He sprawls out on the deck chair, stares out at the overcast sky, touches the edge of the broken off tooth to the soft small space between the pad of his thumb and the nail. It’ll rain later, he’ll go inside, maybe stay out just long enough to feel it falling on his bare arms, the insides of his wrists. He takes a photo of his thumb pressed up dented in by the point of the tooth. Sends it to Nolan. Why the fuck not. 

The first raindrops start falling before he gets a response. 

Nolan kicks off his ratty old sneakers without undoing the laces because he keeps them loose enough that it’s something he can get away with, and maybe that means something, but probably not. He grumbles something about Travis smoking up without him, and Travis grins at him, gives him shit about getting muddy footprints all over the hallway floor, you ever hear of a door mat Patty, jesus. 

There’s reruns of some weird hunting show Nolan likes playing on the TV, and he’s seen it all on netflix but they keep it on anyway. Travis thinks about patience, sitting in the underbrush breathing real quiet and waiting. He thinks about waiting, thinks about wild beasts with pointed teeth, how the wild beasts with the pointed teeth never seem to win. He thinks about Nolan sitting on the other end of the couch from him, leg tucked up with his knee barely a foot away, weird craft beer balanced on his other thigh. He thinks real hard about patience. Presses into the sharpest point. 

When Travis got his wisdom teeth out he was back home for the summer after a comically early exit, and he bitched about the aching in the back of his mouth long enough that his mom booked the appointment for him. Felt like his mouth was full of cotton balls, might’ve been the truth. He texted Pats a record thirty seven times in one hour. Thinks about beating that record most days, but he’s never got the surgical excuse handy, not like the first time. 

When he could feel his mouth again he spent the whole day sticking his tongue into the hole where they’d pulled it out. There’s something almost indescribable about the feeling of the gums when a tooth comes out, and how - vulnerable it feels, maybe. It’s near indescribable but Travis sure tries, any time he has more than a few beers in his system. It’s probably weird.

“D’you ever, like… Is it sharp?” Nolan asks after god knows how many episodes of the hunting show fading comfortably into river monsters into ancient aliens. Fuckin’ history channel.

Travis hums a little, runs his tongue along the point of it, the exact spot he figured out is the sharpest, most likely to cut in if he moves without thinking. He never really knows how much is the right amount to confess at any given time, but he’s done a pretty good job just winging it so far. He hasn’t cut himself on it yet. Barely catches over the ridges of it, won’t hurt unless he makes it. 

“Can I touch it?” Nolan asks in this funny quiet voice, and his voice feels like warm hands on Travis’ shoulders shaking him out of whatever fugue state he’s gotten into. What a fucking question, huh?

Travis thinks about wanting so strongly he feels his whole body tremble with it. The lower side of the first knuckle of Nolan’s index finger is feather light against his lip, and he presses into the sharpest point first, like he had a map. If Travis stops to breathe he might miss it. Something about the angle of Nolan’s hand gets him past the sharpness to the back of it, all smooth and enamel except the rough edge of where it’s broken off, pressing his fingertip to the roof of his mouth, pressure on his hard palate and Travis thinks about it until he doesn’t know how to. 

He thinks about the space between the top of the tooth and the start of the gums, thinks about pressing on it until the pink of the gums goes white under the force of it. Thinks about Nolan, thinks about his hands in his mouth and pressing, not the taste of blood but the taste of something different, and he craves it either way. Digging his fingernails deep enough to really feel it. Enough to make a difference, digging at the skin there and the soft bits where teeth used to be, and maybe all the boundaries and borders they’ve built up are coming loose and it just takes a little bit to pull it out. 

Nolan bites when he kisses. Presses his teeth into Travis’ bottom lip and drags his tongue over the sharpest point and Travis doesn’t have to think about what he wants anymore, all lined up. Easy. Maybe be too easy to make into a habit. Maybe that's not a bad thing.


End file.
